


The Hardest Part

by calmlikesurrender



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 03:33:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calmlikesurrender/pseuds/calmlikesurrender
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hardest part is he apologizes for every breath he takes. Like he dug his nails into Niall’s veins and soaked him straight through with the cancer himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hardest Part

The hardest part is that he still manages to find happiness. In these fleeting moments, breathless and slow, Zayn feels his chest heave and a low chuckle parts his lips.

            Everything stills.

             _Sorry_ , he wants to say, to no one at all. Liam watches him, brows drawn together.

            “You alright?” he asks, and Zayn nods, then it’s there again. A smile this time when Louis slips Harry’s wallet into his pocket, finger to his lips, and they watch Harry stomp about the flat in a panic searching for it.

             _I’m so sorry_ , Zayn mumbles, up at the ceiling, the sky, something beyond it maybe.

            “Are you sure?” Liam asks him, looking up too, trying to see what Zayn sees. White paint. Wood beams. Concrete. He studies him with concern, edging on worry.

            “Yeah,” Zayn says, but  _I’m sorry_ , again and again and again because it shouldn’t be this easy. There’s something so wrong. Everything’s wrong, when it’s twelve months, then fourteen, then seventeen, and he passes someone on the street wearing Niall’s cologne and his world doesn’t shatter into a million excruciating pieces, pierce his skin in shallow cuts that bleed him dry.

 

            He feels dirty.

            Because the hardest part is that he can sleep alone.

             _Two years_  inches closer, circles his heart like a lion, a ravenous beast with razor-sharp claws, teeth jagged points poised to rip his flesh from his bones.

            The other boys speak about him in hissing whispers. Niall’s side of the bed is empty, but so warm. Zayn fists into the covers, takes a deep breath, waits for the tears that never come.

            The hardest part is that he meets someone and he doesn’t want to say no.

            He’s so tall that Zayn has to get on his toes to kiss his neck, feel the bristles at his jaw irritate his lips. Hair the same color as Niall’s roots, dark eyes, though. Something comforting in the change.

            It feels like walking across hot coals with his bare feet, whispering into the man’s ear. It feels like taking his lit cigarette and pressing it to the inside of his elbow, the whimper and hiss as his skin starts to burn away, telling the man he can’t do this.

            The hardest part is that he can sing his and Niall’s song now without trembling.

            Every word used to lap at his chest. Niall had sat on the edge of their bed, smiling up at him in just his pants with his arm slung across his guitar.

            “Hey, babe,” he’d said, watching Zayn with a crooked smile, trailing from the band on his finger up to his eyes, “I wrote this for you.”

            And now the words slur together.

            “Maybe Zayn should sing it,” Harry offers a month before the second year. A tribute concert. They practice their set like they used to in the beginning, giving Niall’s spot on stage a wide girth, empty space that Zayn used to run past. Liam shakes his head.

            “I don’t think so,” he says, “I’ll do it. It’s fine.”

            Zayn’s throat tightens.

            It shouldn’t be this easy. Niall’s hands on his chest. Niall’s eyes and he’s drowning in the air around him, taking in heaves of acid rain.

            The hardest part is that the fans cry.

            He can’t let it heal. It scabs and they tear it away.

The hardest part is that he can hear Niall’s last words and he doesn’t want to go with him. Not yet.

The hardest part is he passes the hospital and he counts up to the fourth floor and there’s no revelation. Stark white walls, tinged with age in creamy light brown splotches.

The hardest part is Liam never stops expecting him to break down.

The hardest part is he apologizes for every breath he takes. Like he dug his nails into Niall’s veins and soaked him straight through with the cancer himself.

Sorrysorrysorrysorrybabei’msosorry. The hardest part is that it’s not hard anymore, not really.

The hardest part is that he can’t make it stop.


End file.
